How To Fix Your Broken Smartphone

If you’ve ever dropped your smartphone you know that time almost seems to come to a halt as you helplessly watch it crash to the ground, seemingly in slow motion. Then you close your eyes, take a deep breath, and inspect it—hoping and praying that the display isn’t cracked or shattered. Thankfully, if it is damaged and you need to repair your smartphone, you have some options available.

I had a few damaged iPhones lying around. I wasn’t sure whether or not there were cost-effective solutions available to repair them, or if it would be better to just write them off and get something new. I decided to explore the options available for fixing a smartphone—both do-it-yourself kits and professional services. The good news is that it’s possible to repair a smartphone for a reasonable cost.

I started out by using a do-it-yourself kit to repair a damaged iPhone 4s screen. I got the DIY repair kit from iCracked. The iPhone 4s kit is $90 (currently on “sale” for $45), and it goes up from there to $180 for an iPhone 6 display kit.
iCracked also offers DIY kits for Samsung devices and iPad displays, as well as faulty or damaged batteries and water-damaged devices.

The iCracked DIY kit for the iPhone 4s was nice. It comes with the necessary tools: Phillips screwdriver, flathead screwdriver, pentalobe screwdriver, nylon spudger, suction cup, guitar pick, SIM card tray tool, and microfiber cleaning cloth. It also has detailed, step-by-step instructions and links to YouTube videos that walk through the entire process.

I have extensive training and experience in electronics so your mileage may vary, but it only took me about 30 minutes to dismantle the iPhone 4s, replace the display, and reassemble the fully-functioning smartphone. Working with tiny screws and the delicate internal components of an iPhone is not for the faint of heart and I wouldn’t recommend my mother-in-law try it. However, I think most people could follow the instructions from iCracked and successfully replace an iPhone 4s display using this kit.

Next, I moved on to try the same thing with an iPhone 5s using a DIY repair kit from DirectFix. DirectFix offers a similar array of DIY repair kit options as iCracked but for a larger selection of devices beyond
Apple and Samsung. The iPhone 5s DIY kit I received from DirectFix was similar to what I received from iCracked—along with a similar set of the requisite tools needed to perform the repairs. There were no instructions that I could find, but I eventually discovered that the shipping invoice in the box included a note with the link to access the DirectFix videos to walk through the repairs.

The iPhone 5s was significantly more challenging than the iPhone 4s. Taking the unit apart was much more involved, and the addition of the Touch ID sensor made it a much more delicate procedure. The Touch ID sensor is connected using a thin ribbon cable that is easily damaged, and if you damage it there is no way to repair it. I followed the video and replaced the cracked display, but the new display had an issue.

When I turned the device on there were some vertical lines on the left side of the display, and the touchscreen was only partially functional. I don’t fault DirectFix or the DIY kit for the problem. I assume I crushed or pinched something while dismantling or assembling the iPhone. In other words, it was operator error on my part and a good reason to think twice about trying to fix a smartphone yourself.

The DIY kit is a cheaper way to repair a smartphone than paying a professional to fix it but not if you screw up the DIY repair and still end up having to pay a professional to fix the original problem, and possibly new problems you created trying to fix it yourself. In the long run, it is far less stressful and possibly less expensive to just let a professional fix your smartphone.

The challenge there is finding a professional you can trust—or at least it used to be. I see all kinds of smartphone repair services and dirty, cheap looking shops that claim to fix smartphones. However, I don’t really trust they know what they’re doing any more than I do, and I am not confident in the quality of the work, or that the repair will be warrantied.

Then I discovered Radio Shack’s Fix It Here service. Fix It Here is a sort of store-within-a-store available in thousands of Radio Shack outlets. The technicians that work at Fix It Here receive 40 hours of intense, specialized, hands-on training led by a master technician. They can repair cracked displays, broken charging ports, water damage, camera issues, audio problems, batteries, and more. Repairs start at $39.99. A cracked display repair averages around $110, and replacing a faulty battery is about $40.

Radio Shack has faded into relative obscurity compared to its former glory, but it’s still a brand I trust with electronics. More importantly, it is a respected chain of stores that spans the nation, and it provides a 7-month warranty of parts and labor on its repairs. Fix It Here offers repairs you can be confident in at a reasonable price.

It also does it fast. The Fix It Here technicians can complete most of the repairs on site in an hour or two. I gave the Fix It Here technician the iPhone 5s I damaged trying to fix it myself, and an iPhone 4s that would no longer charge. He replaced the display, and the internal speaker—which I had damaged while reassembling the device—on the iPhone 5s, and put a new charging port in the iPhone 4s. For less than $200 both of the devices were made fully-functional again, and returned to me in a few hours.

Both iCracked and DirectFix also offer professional repairs. iCracked manages a network of third-party local technicians. Your request is farmed out to local repair technicians who will contact you, and provide a quote for service. The technician will come to you and complete the repair on site, and the repairs are warrantied for life. With DirectFix you have to ship the broken device to them and wait for it to get back to you. Radio Shack will also ship devices out for repair from Fix It Here in some rare circumstances, or at locations not equipped with a Fix It Here facility.

In the end, the iPhone 4s repair I did myself with the iCracked kit would only cost about $45 right now, and it was a relatively simple process. If I had that to do over again, I think I would still choose do-it-yourself over potentially paying more than double to have a service like Fix It Here repair it. The iPhone 5s, on the other hand, ended up costing about double what it would have cost to let Fix It here do it in the first place once you add the original DIY kit, and the display and speaker repairs performed by Fix It Here.

So should you fix it yourself, or just let a professional do it? Only you can really answer that question. Do you feel lucky (or, better yet, actually know what you’re doing), or would you rather just get it fixed right the first time and walk away with a functional device in an hour or two?